About 10 months before we got married, my dad was diagnosed with cancer. He was only 58. 16 months after his diagnosis, he died.
2014-2015 was the hardest year of my life. I hadn't dealt with the death of a parent. My famlily relied on me heavily during my dad's illness to help with decision making and for directions. I was in another state for a large chunk of this time which only added to my stress.
During this time, I was obviously moody. I went from frustrated to angry to depressed to crying all the time. My husband didn't know how to be supportive and I didn't know how to ask for support. I took a lot of frustration out on him.
After my father passed away, things didn't improve with us. As I was mourning, this is when he was neglecting me. I would be so happy when he would come home and he would be cold. I would be sitting in the living room crying to myself while he sat in the office.
Yesterday, my husband came over to talk. He ended up not going to his friends party where his ex was going to be. During the course of our conversation, he focused a lot on how his needs and wants were put on the backburner as I dealt with my father's illness and death. He went so far to say "No wonder I didn't want to have sex with you, you were so angry!" He has told me a few times that I have been using the experience as an excuse for my bad behavior during this time (!!!!).
I'm a little shocked by these explanations and to be honest I feel like they are more excuses. Our intimacy and sexual problems started well before my father fell ill. The problem with his ex all pre-dated this.
I admitted to him yesterday that I did take out a lot of frustration out on him, and I'm sorry. I felt so weird apologizing for this. He's actually holding this against me. Where is his compassion and understanding?
At the end, I put out there what I would be willing to do and work on to move forward. He listened to this, but then didn't really reply. This coldness of his is just the worst. It leaves me feeling like a fool for being so open. I can admit my wrongdoing and give heartfelt apologies, but I don't get it in return.
At the end, he left saying he still doesn't know what to do. He may still want a divorce. I still feel this is all crazy. First of all, if he is going to hold my reactions during the hardest year of my life against me, he is not a good person. And if I can sit here and put all this out there, with a true willingness to work and move forward, and he still doesn't know, it tells me his love is not very strong.
He asks me how can he know the next time something bad happens I won't react the same way? I mean, couldn't my response be how could I know you won't contact your ex again? Nobody can know these things, but part of building trust is putting things out there and committing to working on it, isn't it?
